Look straight through me - look at the nightmare. Our past is but a dream that we’re trying to escape,1 trying to evade to erase ourselves. Look through me and see the advent of our obsessions.2 Behold, your child, perfection - a rotting shell of atrophy.
Watching: Crowds like crows, we furiously flock to tragedy; observe the hurt then hasten back to our peaceful, quiet nests of blasphemy.
Scapegoat: Rather die and know,3 drag your failing body in tow - witnessing the wake, conflagrate the ready oil at the stake.
Binging: The culmination of purging what our lusts have borne. We hoarded all the world to find we’d lost any semblance of ourselves.4
This dying dance.
I am not my own reflection. I am not myself, I am not myself. No, I am haunted by a non-existent Lover: The spectre, the ghost, the soul-starving host.5 I am haunted by a non-existent lover.
I was gifted with the vision, but cursed to be the witness.6
I’ll be pale to match the walls and warped to trace the beams; flushed to fit across the floor so you can step right over me. Scouring this filthy slate these crooked bones they won’t break straight - cracked and splintered like our house, upended by that first summer squall.
Fading: so thin, you could snap me into the shape you need - gaunt enough to slide through that wedding dress. Then stitch me to a fraying matrimony
embalmed inside a never-ending ceremony.7
I am not my own reflection. I am not myself, I am not myself. No, I am haunted by a non-existent Lover: The spectre, the ghost, the soul-starving host. I am haunted by a non-existent lover.
I was gifted with the vision but cursed to be the witness.
Invisible to me… invisible to me… invisible to me8



Behind the Song:
1 James Joyce, Ulysses
2 Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Currency
3 Genesis 2:17
4 Matthew 16:26
5 “Ana”
6 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
7 Anorexia is the most deadly psychiatric disorder with an estimated mortality rate of 5.86.
8 If you or a loved one is experiencing eating disorders, please get help immediately. For more information, visit: www.nationaleatingdisorders.org